


Even the Desert Was Once an Ocean

by EchoResonance



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:53:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>However hardened your heart, however dry your eyes, nobody is free of moments of weakness. Nobody is entirely without pain. And the one who tries the hardest not to care is sometimes the one who cares far too much. Memories may fade, but the hurt that accompanies them is never really forgotten. That's something both Allen and Kanda know all too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even the Desert Was Once an Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot where I was going with this, to be honest.

Normally Allen would have woken his companion up if he noticed they were having a nightmare. However, with Kanda, all of his usual tendencies were out the window, as he didn’t especially want to be skewered on the guy’s sword. Still, neither did he want to just leave him to his fearful sleep. Cautiously, ready to jump back to avoid injury, he reached over and touched Kanda’s shoulder, giving it a firm shake. The older boy sprang up at once, breathing labored, his face shining with sweat and his dark eyes frenzied. Mugen seemed to just appear in his hand, causing Allen to scramble hastily backwards from where he had been knocked to the floor.

“K-Kanda!” he yelped, left arm out in front of him in case the panicked Exorcist decided to swing at anything within range.

Kanda blinked and looked down. It took him a moment, but his gaze did focus on Allen and his sword tip lowered slightly.

“Tch,” he said sourly. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Allen responded, hand still raised. Just because Kanda was conscious didn’t mean that he wouldn’t attack him. “You were--you were having a nightmare, s-so I tried to wake you up.”

Kanda blinked in surprise, then looked away to glower at the wall as he sheathed his sword. Allen took that as his cue to safely return to his seat across from the swordsman and did so, folding his hands neatly in his lap and gazing quizzically at his companion. If the man in question took any notice of Allen’s curiosity, he paid it no mind as he sat down once again and looked out the window. The way he glared at it, one would have thought the glass had paid him terrible insult, maybe even tried to touch his hair.

“Kanda…?” Allen said hesitantly.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

Kanda glanced around, scowl deepening and making Allen wonder just how many more wrinkles he could force into existence on his forehead before they stayed like that forever. Really, he didn’t think he’d ever seen the his brow not deeply creased, what with his perpetually sour attitude.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he said curtly.

“Well,” said Allen quietly, shifting to fold his legs on the seat. “It just seemed like you were having a pretty bad dream and--”

“Only a fool would be bothered by dreams,” Kanda interrupted, voice sharp. “It’s not like they’re real.”

Allen pressed his lips together and frowned.

“They’re real enough when you’re having them,” Allen pointed out. “It’s not a bad thing to say if something scares you, you know. Your skin isn’t actually gonna melt if you talk to someone about stuff that bothers you.”

Kanda’s lip curled.

“And why would I want to talk to you if something was bothering me?”

Sighing heavily, Allen leaned back and closed his eyes.

“I _am_ the only one here,” he said reasonably.

“Unfortunately,” Kanda snorted.

He ignored that.

“Plus,” he continued. “Your hands are still shaking.”

Kanda let out an involuntary noise and glanced down at his fingers, which were indeed still trembling from whatever had plagued him in his sleep. He curled them into fists in an effort to hide his body’s own traitorous response to something as stupid as a bad dream, but it did little good; Allen had already seen them. Kanda didn’t want to look up because he knew, he just knew that that stupid kid was looking at him, all soft eyes and gentle smiles making him want to rip out his own insides and feed them to the gold golem sitting on top of his head.

Why would the beansprout never leave well enough alone? Ugh, he was always butting into other people’s business, trying to fix every little thing like he was some magic cure-all just by being the human form of the goddamn sun. It was infuriating, his need to be friends with everyone and his need for everyone to be friends with each other. Kanda couldn’t stand it. How could one person be so happy and so friendly after dealing with so much trauma? How did he brush off the many attempt to shoot him down and continue to bounce along, always shining too brightly to look directly at?

It was even more frustrating because it was familiar. Kanda had known someone else like that, a long time ago. Someone else who would never leave him alone and who would’ve torn down heaven and raised hell if it meant that he could bring people together. If he could be friends with everyone. His eyes stung as he remembered another obnoxious boy, too kind for his own good and too invested in caring. The boy he had seen not minutes ago in his fitful sleep.

“Kanda?” Allen said quietly, concerned by his stiff silence.

He looked up reflexively, hands still clenched in his lap, and only when he tried to focus on Allen’s face did he realize that his vision was blurry. He clicked his tongue and looked away hastily, hoping against logic that the kid had somehow not noticed the moisture in his eyes. Stupid, of course. Allen noticed immediately, and the atmosphere of the compartment grew thick enough to cut with a knife--or Mugen--as he registered that Kanda _I-care-about-nothing_ Yuu was on the verge of tears.

Very slowly Allen climbed to his feet, watching Kanda the way one might watch a wild and volatile predator, and moved to sit next to him, leaving some distance between them on the bench. Kanda twitched but did not react beyond that.

“Kanda,” he said quietly. Searchingly. “You don’t have to be cold all the time.”

“Shut up,” he snapped harshly. “I didn’t ask for a therapy session, Beansprout.”

A tick started beneath Allen’s eye, completely unrelated to any nearby Akuma. He’d never met a person who was so good at simultaneously being a massive jerk and an irreplaceable team member. All those speeches he gave about not caring whether you lived or died and how he’d kill you himself if you got in the way, inevitably followed by him appearing out of nowhere at the last minute to save your stupid ass before you got blown to bits or sliced into sushi. He was a man of many inconsistencies. However, that didn’t mean Allen was prepared in any way for the stoic Exorcist with his mask of stone to show actual _feelings_ , and he was especially unprepared for _tears_. He would have thought that Kanda’s tear ducts had dried and shriveled up a very long time ago, putting even the most arid desert to shame in their barrenness.

“If it makes you feel any better, I won’t tell anybody else that the great Kanda Yuu does actually have feelings,” he said, making a weak stab at humor.

Kanda clicked his tongue the way he so often did when especially annoyed. With a heavy and somewhat frustrated sigh, Allen gave up on gently prodding him in favor of actually prodding him, pushing his elbow into his side with a fair amount of force. The other Exorcist hissed in surprised and whipped around, sword in hand, to hear Allen’s last words before his most unfortunate and early death. He was met with a hard, silvery blue gaze that brought him up short just shy of embedding Mugen in his torso. That, and the fact that Allen had caught the blade with his left hand, holding it at bay.

“Do you wanna die, Beansprout?” he snarled.

“Not really, no,” Allen said uneasily, guiding the sword tip away from his vulnerable chest.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Kanda said, voice gruff.

“Look, I get that you hate me or whatever,” Allen said as if Kanda hadn’t spoken. “I’m not exactly your biggest fan either, alright? But I don’t...ah…”

“Spit it out Beansprout so that I can go back to ignoring you,” the swordsman said, but his scowl seemed to lessen. Only by a fraction, though.

“Speaking from experience, other people can help,” Allen said slowly. “Even if you don’t really want to talk about it...just having someone be there...it is a nice comfort.”

“What the hell are you going on about n--” Kanda said, but cut himself off when he registered that Allen was holding his arms extended. As if he wanted a hug. He was wearing that stupid grin again.

“C’mon Kanda,” he said. “When was the last time you had a hug?”

“No way in hell,” Kanda said bluntly. He rose to his feet with every intention of stepping out into the corridor and sitting by their Finder.

“Come on now,” Allen coaxed, rising as well to block his path. “You know you want to.”

Kanda scowled at the boy furiously, his eyebrow twitching and a vein in his temple throbbing viciously. He couldn’t actually be _serious_?! But then, if he wasn’t, why was he still sitting there with his arms open, smiling like the massive moron that he absolutely was? Shit, he wasn’t like Alma at all. He was more annoying, more goddamn persistent than that boy had ever been, with his idiotic optimism and obsession with making people happy. Even Alma was a rainy day compared to the sun incarnate sitting in the small train compartment with Kanda.

“You’re not going to leave it alone, are you?” Kanda ground out through his teeth.

Allen’s smile, if possible, got brighter.

“Nope!”

Kanda’s lip curled irately and he closed his eyes, heaving a sigh of resignation.

“Whatever,” he grumbled.

Kanda’s hand fell away from Mugen’s hilt, and Allen’s eyes widened momentarily in surprise, but he didn’t forgo the apparent--if reluctant--permission. As he stepped in closer Kanda wondered what the ramifications might be for hugging a cursed person. A moment later the boy’s lean arms had slid around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, and it took all of Kanda’s willpower not to immediately leap back despite the fact that he knew it was coming. His tense posture could hardly have gone unnoticed, but Allen didn’t pay comment to it lest it break down what little dignity Kanda was still attempting to cling to. As Kanda struggled to adjust to being this close to someone when he wasn’t fighting them, he reluctantly began to take notice of certain things.

He wasn’t quite as short as he had been when they first met. Granted, Allen was still hardly close to matching _his_ height, but his hair was now brushing Kanda’s cheek and instigating an awkward itch where once the top of the boy’s head had barely reached Kanda’s shoulder. His hair smelled weird, too, like something vaguely floral that seemed very out of place coming from the beansprout, at least to Kanda. Allen’s hold on him, while hardly bruising, was quite solid, and he thought that it would take a fair amount of effort to break free if he elected to do so. The boy was definitely strong, especially for his age and size.

Allen Walker was also warm. Incredibly so, his lean frame radiating body heat like Kanda couldn’t fathom and only lending to the idea that he was secretly the sun disguised as a human. His temperature burned right through both of their jackets as if he was trying to leave a brand where he made contact. It actually felt...almost pleasant...the feeling of a warm embrace. Safe, almost. Stupid, of course, Walker was hardly capable of protecting him and only a fool would feel _safe_ because of something as inconsequential as a hug, but still the feeling was there, and without realizing it Kanda began to relax, some of the tension easing from his shoulders. Noticing this, Allen’s arms tightened around his torso.

With an inaudible sigh, Kanda allowed himself to appreciate the embrace for a few moments longer than he should have before firmly pushing Allen away. The boy went with little resistance, looking into Kanda’s face curiously and still wearing his irritating smile. Kanda actively avoided his gaze and sat back down in his seat, folding his arms and pretending not to notice that a fresh trail of a cold something was lingering on his cheek. He listened as Allen sat down, once again across from him, and gave a quiet chuckle.

“What’s so funny Beansprout?” Kanda said, but the venom in his voice was worn and came out sounding like he was simply tired.

“Even the stoic Kanda cries, huh?”

Kanda scowled and whipped around, sword in hand once more.

“Shut up,” he snapped. “Before I gut you like a fish.”

“That’s not very nice, Kanda,” Allen said, his own voice going hard. The air began to thicken again as Kanda clicked his tongue.

“Nice is for idiots like you.”


End file.
